{painting} – Page 135 – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 69

Peacock Apocalypse (detail) by Julie Evans in collaboration with Ajay Sharma.

Here at { feuilleton }, home of the curly bracket affectation, your correspondent is still surprised to find his postings the subject of a critique by Rick Poynor in the latest edition of Eye magazine, the international review of graphic design. I haven’t seen a print copy yet but you can read Mr Poynor’s appraisal here. Meanwhile, over at Design Observer this week there’s another Poynor piece about the collage illustrations of Andrzej Klimowski.

• Alan Moore (yes, him again) discusses the moment when the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen gets all swinging and psychedelic. And Iain Sinclair (yes, him again) is still doing the interview rounds promoting his current book, Ghost Milk.

• Ayin Acla, a short film by Anna Thew with a soundtrack by Cyclobe. The most recent Cyclobe album, Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window, was previously vinyl-only but is now available on CD.

• Bones and beads and other things in Wren Britton’s Pure Vile clothing and accessories. Related: Patrick Veillet’s wearable bone sculptures.

• Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities Q&A: Ann & Jeff VanderMeer answer questions about their latest anthology at Fangoria.

• Being a lifelong introvert, I’m sympathetic to Four Ways Technology Can Enable Your Inner Introvert by Philip Bump.

• In an all-too-rare meeting of minds and talents, Roy Harper talks to Joanna Newsom.

• Jon Macy’s Teleny and Camille is reviewed at Lambda Literary.

• Author Carol Birch tells us how best to read Finnegans Wake.

• Joel Pirela’s Design Classics posters.

• Each And Every Word Must Die (1999) by Cyclobe | Brightness Falls From The Air (2001) by Cyclobe | Indulge Yourselves With Our Delicious Monster (2006) by Cyclobe

The angels in their anguish

Equus (2009).

As an addendum to the earlier post about the Clive Hicks-Jenkins retrospective currently running at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, here’s a brief look at the artist’s monograph which turned up in the post this week. Having seen much of this work only in Clive’s blog posts (many of which were day-to-day recordings of work in progress) it’s a real pleasure to see them at larger size in high-quality print. In addition to familiar works there are many sketches and smaller pieces interleaved with the text, and unlike many monographs this isn’t the work of a single author but features appreciations from Simon Callow, Damian Walford Davies, Andrew Green, Rex Harley, Kathe Koja, Anita Mills, Montserrat Prat, Jacqueline Thalmann and Marly Youmans, as well as notes and comments by the artist.

Battle Ground (2007).

Andrew Wakelin has done a great job with the book’s design, the use of Gill Sans throughout feels just right. As mentioned before, the publisher is Lund Humphries, and they have a discount for orders made through their website. A few more page samples follow.

Continue reading “The angels in their anguish”

The art of Johfra Bosschart, 1919–1998

The Adoration of Pan triptych (1979).

The hyper-detailed paintings of this Dutch artist, who often seems to be referred to by his forename alone, were self-described as “Surrealism based on studies of psychology, religion, the Bible, astrology, antiquity, magic, witchcraft, mythology and occultism”. All bases are covered, in other words, and the work is certainly furious and intense at its best even if it’s not always to my taste. Some of Johfra’s Monsters from the Id are closer to Basil Wolverton than HR Giger which makes for unintentional comedy. As usual with detailed artwork, it’s a shame the reproductions on offer aren’t a larger size.

Moldoror series: The Hermaphrodite (1976).

The pictures here are from one of the online numbers of Visionary Review which a biography and several galleries of work from different periods of Johfra’s career. Thanks to Thom for the reminder about this artist.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive

Clive Hicks-Jenkins: A Retrospective

I know I’m not the only person capable of grumbling about London’s monopoly on art exhibitions so I’m a little mortified to find I’ve not mentioned Clive Hicks-Jenkins: A Retrospective, an exhibition which has been running at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, since May. There’s no excuse for the oversight since I read all of Clive’s blog posts and most of the recent ones have concerned the exhibition and an accompanying monograph published by Lund Humphries.

Both Fall (2001).

Among the pieces on display are some of his large Mari Lwyd drawings from 2001, two of which are shown here. I think these were the first works I saw of Clive’s and they remain favourites of mine despite their sombre subject matter. The combination of Picasso-like figures, disjunctive perspectives and monochrome nocturnal landscapes make for a very powerful series which Clive discusses in recent blog posts. Not everyone who’s this good with monochrome can handle a combination of tones effectively but Clive’s recent paintings use colour in a manner which is both confident and immediately striking. Form is Void has a small collection of some recent works but if you can get to Aberystwyth you can see them up close. Clive Hicks-Jenkins: A Retrospective runs to August 20th, 2011.

Red Flow (2001).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Equus and the Executionist
• Dark horses

Weekend links 68

Every man and every woman is a star by Sveta Dorosheva.

• Matt Taylor (illustration) with Gregg Kulick and Paul Buckley (design) provide new Penguin covers for John Le Carré. I love the look which seems inspired by Daniel Kleinman’s title sequence for Casino Royale even if it doesn’t quite suit the shabby world of George Smiley and the Circus.

[Deborah Kass] told me that when she was going to art school in the ’70s, she tripped on LSD almost every week and she said she felt it was her “moral duty as an artist to take the trip.” […] I think psychedelic experience makes you think that there are multiple realities, that there isn’t just this one normal real world to which we’re supposed to conform, but that the reality changes depending on the state of consciousness that we’re in when we’re experiencing it. So, any different kind of art kind of posits a different reality. (more)

New York Times art critic Ken Johnson discussing his new book Are You Experienced?: How Psychedelic Consciousness Transformed Modern Art.

• “That got me thinking that evolution really isn’t survival of the fittest, when it comes to these things, it is more like survival of the interesting, survival of the beautiful, survival of the weird, cool stuff that managed to evolve.” Laurie Anderson and David Rothenberg discuss music and animals.

• Laura Cumming on the late Lucian Freud. And Stephen Heller on Alex Steinweiss, the originator in 1939 of the artistic record sleeve who also died last week.

• Alan Moore says “Think Locally: Fuck ‘Globally'”. He and Queen Calluz explain how Dodgem Logic magazine puts their ideas into practice.

• Adam Curtis gets interviewed while Alan Bennett returns to Armley Public Library in Leeds.

• Peacock’s Garden, a celebration of pavonine splendour.

• A visit to Seher Shah’s studio in Brooklyn, New York.

• Maximum androgyny at Epicenity, a Tumblr.

• Does your god have a penis?

• Chrysalide (1978) is an album of “cosmic” guitar instrumentals by Michel Moulinié which sounds at times like a French equivalent of Manuel Göttsching. It’s never been released on CD but a copy can be found here.